When Steve Brown, researcher and master carver, looks at totem poles, he sees details: the quality of the formline design, the subtle curves around a jaw, lip or eyelid, the amount and placement of any weathering or decay, the tiny, intricate figures hiding behind a bear’s ear or sitting on its shoulder, and the composition’s place within the continuum of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian art history.
Last Thursday, Brown visited Wrangell to present his research on the island’s totem poles as part of the Sharing Our Knowledge conference. His lecture featured an in-depth visual presentation, filled with historical and contemporary photographs of notable objects. He analyzed artworks’ visual features and explained how he uses old images and sketches to date and attribute various works.
Totem poles’ style has changed over time, Brown explained, noting how earlier poles typically featured a carved figure atop a bare wooden shaft. “The whole reason was to elevate the clan crest,” he said. “For the same reason that churches have steeples.”
Dating a totem pole is not always a simple feat, since different compositions and wood types weather differently, and each artists’ style changes over time. A horizontal pole, Brown explained, decays faster than a vertical one since water can enter the top, allowing plants to grow. He showed a picture of Wrangell’s horizontal Bear Up a Mountain pole to illustrate this point. In later photos, the bear is covered in a thick layer of foliage.
Brown also explored the works and lives of influential Wrangell carvers, particularly Kadjisdu.axch, whose career lasted from about 1770 to 1810. Tlingit scholar Louis Shortridge described Kadjisdu.axch as “the greatest carver of wood in the history of the Tlingit people,” but not many facts about the artist’s life were recorded.
Anthropologists studying the Tlingit in the 19th century and much of the 20th century tended to focus on language and kinship structures, while overlooking the identities, histories and unique carving styles of individual master artists. Christian missionaries often destroyed these carver’s works, believing poles to be religious idols rather than crests. Brown’s research has sought to connect carvings with the artists who created them.
Kadjisdu.axch was likely a nobleman, since Tlingit carvers were usually members of the aristocratic class. His work is admired to this day; in 2019, a rattle attributed to Kadjisdu.axch, which was just over a foot long, sold for $500,000.
Brown also showed works by Yiika.aas (William Ukas) and his son, Tom Ukas. Both men were prominent Wrangell carvers, though Brown felt that the quality of the father’s line work made his carvings superior to his son’s. Some scholars have contested claims like these — archivist Zachary Jones suggests that the aesthetic qualities of Tlingit objects may be less important than their ceremonial functionality.
In his Thursday talk, Brown also discussed common misconceptions about Southeast Alaska Native art, including the idea that the rings that often appear atop carved whale hats are “potlach rings.” Since these rings are integral to the structure of the hat, the number could not change over time, he explained, though they may indicate how often the object had been reproduced by another generation of carvers.
Brown has a longstanding relationship with the Wrangell, since much of his scholarship centers around Wrangell’s artistic history. In 2013, he played an important role in the Chief Shakes Tribal House renovation project when, alongside carvers Linda Churchill and Susie Kasinger, he created a new bear screen for the tribal house entrance. His bear screen was a copy of an earlier work, which is currently housed in the Denver Art Museum.
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